


if I were a little bird

by schrodingers__cat (orphan_account)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, a German song but don't worry it gets translated in the story, and i've made my peace with that, and of course some lovely found family, obligatory caleb backstory angst, rampant headcanon about caleb's connection with fire, slight body horror, there's a link to the song in the end notes, this is honestly just an excuse to use a bunch of dramatic symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/schrodingers__cat
Summary: Bren Aldric Ermendrud is born at midday, with the sun shining bright and high.Caleb Widogast is born from ashes and haze and nothing at all.
Relationships: Astrid & Eodwulf & Caleb Widogast, Caleb Widogast & Everyone, The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 88





	if I were a little bird

_Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär,_

Bren Aldric Ermendrud is born at midday, with the sun shining bright and high. His mother’s name is Una and his father’s name is Leofric, and they live in a small town of simple, kindly farmers and retired soldiers. A few family friends have children around the same age, and they grow up together in houses on the same street. 

_Und auch zwei Flüglein hätt,_

Bren finds himself shy--preferring ink on paper to conversation--but he has a talent for words and a brilliant smile. He’s sharp without meaning to be, and strange in a way that makes it seem like he sees something you don’t. He’s five years old and asking why the leaves change color and how the clouds make rain, and when no one can answer, he comes up with theories himself and asks which is the most likely.

_Flög ich zu dir,_

Eodwulf and Astrid, Bren’s parents decide, are godsends. They draw him out from his world of words and force him into the sunlight. 

They prove to be no less bright, if perhaps less bookish--Astrid finds herself cunning and quiet and kind, Eodwulf is strong and steady, and when Bren teaches himself his first cantrip, they aren’t far behind. 

As Bren summons his first small flame cupped in his hands, with his friends’ smiles reflecting the glimmer, it feels right. 

_Weil’s aber nicht kann sein,_

They are the pride and joy of their village, in their new threadbare wizard outfits. Bren’s hat keeps falling over his eyes, Eodwulf’s limbs are too long for his robe, and Astrid’s doesn’t fit her shoulders quite right, but they’re proud anyway. Their parents made them by hand, just for them. 

_Bleib ich allhier._

Sometimes--Bren still needs to run (to hide. His mind is a comfort when he needs it most, in its sharp calculations and wild tangents). In his hiding spot in the hayloft he sets his hands alight. He marvels at the ease with which he summons the flame, and the warmth it brings. It doesn’t burn him. (Even the fire in his parents’ hearth can’t seem to bring itself to burn him.)

_Bin ich gleich weit von dir,_

Again, and again, and again, they are chosen. Chosen by their village and families, chosen by the Soltryce Academy, and finally, chosen by Trent Ikithon. 

Ikithon sees three shabbily-robed students and feels power and fate within them. They see an opportunity, he sees potential, and some hand of fate pushes them together. They leave the Soltryce Academy gladly.

(Bren--he wanted to be a teacher. He always loved teaching the other two new spells--the thrill of knowledge and passing it on--and he wanted to do that forever. He looked at Master Trent Ikithon choosing the best and the brightest, and thought: yes. I want to do that.) 

_Bin ich doch im Schlaf bei dir,_

Trent Ikithon looks down at his three brilliant new students, and decides that it doesn’t matter that they are children. He reaches out with a gnarled hand and twists that strength, warps that compassion, sharpens that intelligence. 

(He can’t quite snuff out the fire.)

_Und red mit dir,_

Master Ikithon’s mind becomes their minds, his thoughts become their thoughts. They bleed and they die and they come back to life and they chant and they sing and they laugh and they cry. There are brambles entwining Astrid’s lovely heart, Eodwulf’s strength is barbed with wire, and Bren is calculating, always calculating, always thinking. 

_Wenn ich erwachen thu,_

Bren’s eyes are cold and his hands are hot and it’s a horrible contradiction, this contrast, these two things that never should meet. Ice and fire entwined is beautiful and terrible to behold. 

For so many from the never-ending line of “traitors,” it is the last thing they see. 

The first time he tortures and kills, inflicts pain and reaps death with the same success he does everything else that Master Ikithon asks, he hesitates. Infinitesimally, but he does. Eodwulf and Astrid do not. 

(This is important.) 

_Bin ich allein._

Master Ikithon has a fondness for crystals and gems. He’s certain, so very certain of the power that they hold intertwined and scattered in their facets, formed through impenetrable earth and blinding heat and unbearable pressure. (As he forms his students.)

His three prodigies are given no relief from the pain as he presses fully-formed, sharpened, perfectly cut and unfractured (but oh-so-very-sharp) crystals into their arms. They form arcane symbols and circles, carved into their flesh, nearing the bone. 

It’s only an experiment. Whether it works or not, they will be scarred by it. (Astrid and Eodwulf are proud of the pain and the scars. So is Bren, but he hesitates. He hesitates.)

_Es vergeht kein Stund in der Nacht,_

The dichotomy of Bren Aldric Ermendrud is that he walks into a tree while reading one day, and burns a man alive the next. This is the contradiction that Ikithon has created within them, that lets Astrid nervously hold Bren’s hand and lets ‘Wulf carry him on his shoulders while they both laugh. 

This is the great divide that lets them (blank) reach for a disgusting traitor with a blade (they do not feel, do not think) and raise it to that unworthy creature’s hands and (they belong to the Empire) they cut down, through tendon and bone (they are doing this for the good of the people) and finally reach for the throat (they are saving lives) and end it. 

_Da mein Herze nicht erwacht,_

Master Ikithon lets them go home for the weekend. They haven’t seen anything outside of his home and Rexxentrum in years. They’re seventeen, and so very excited. 

(Bren’s hands are shaking. He doesn’t notice. Astrid and Eodwulf don’t notice. He keeps spacing out, blanking for imperceptible seconds. But that’s just Bren, always thinking, always stuck in his head. There’s nothing wrong here. There’s nothing wrong.)

_Und an dich gedenkt,_

The unthinkable happens. They are so ashamed. Horrified, beyond comprehension. 

(They do not think: these people raised us. These people are soldiers, patriots, they are kind and good and bright.)

How could they have been so blind? How could they have come from such traitors?

(They think as the children they are--trusting. Trusting that every crystal shard shoved into their bloodied skin was for a reason. Trusting that their minds are their own.) 

They murder and poison and burn, certain that Blumenthal won’t mourn what they’ve done. 

And then--and then not so certain. 

(Bren was always the smartest. Bren was always the leader. Bren was always the one who hesitated.) 

_Dass du mir viel tausendmal,_

It’s easy for Astrid to forget that fire was made for Bren and Bren was made for fire, and that when he screams, his fire screams with him. 

It rises in intensity with every passing second, in harsh contrast and yet in perfect harmony with his eyes, still such a lovely ice blue. Reflecting the flames. (There is no reflection off of his tears, because there aren’t any.)

Bren reaches for her and fire entwines around his hand, not burning him. Never burning him. (It still can’t bear to hurt him.)

It’s so incredibly loud—the screaming in the house and the screaming from Bren and and the roaring of the bonfire to her right and Bren’s flames in front of her. The streams of fire are so close, too close--

There is only white-hot pain and her own too-cold breath.

(The scar on her neck is a reminder. Never underestimate your friends. She reaches for it sometimes--alone, when the nervous tick cannot be seen by anyone but her--and she wonders at the power Bren once wielded. She doesn’t wonder whether he’s alright.)

_Dein Herz geschenkt._

Bren retreats inside his mind, just like he always does. This time, there’s a hand on his forehead aiding the process, but he does not feel it, nor does he remember it.

_If I were a little bird,_

Caleb Widogast is born from ashes and haze and nothing at all. He’s gone from a brilliant prodigy to a broken man in an eleven-year instant, and screams ring in his ears as the guard posted at his room burns and then falls, crumbling. 

After all this time, fire still belongs to him. (Even if he fears it, now.)

_And had two little wings,_

To be afraid of that flame is to be afraid of his own soul. Fire is and always has been in his hair and his eyes and his hands and the magic that he loved so dearly. Still loves. There is fire in the transmutation that he uses to oh-so-desperately get away from it. It runs through his veins in burning arcs.

_I’d fly to you,_

Caleb Widogast, staring blankly at his unburned hands in the corner of a jail cell, is empty.

He is not alone in this. 

There’s a mother who was washed away and replaced with something worthless and cruel. A little girl has never once seen the outside world and the wonders it holds, content with her mother and the spirit that makes her laugh. A man drowns in the ocean and his lungs are replaced with barnacles and his blood becomes seawater. A woman’s heart is torn from her chest and the storm takes her in its arms. A barefoot girl doesn’t know what it’s like to have a heart in the first place—she was never taught. A forest creature feels his loss and stays behind anyway. A man with scars littering his skin and dirt under his fingernails knows nothing, and all he can say is empty, empty. 

_But since it cannot be,_

The goblin in Caleb’s cell has yellow eyes and sharpened teeth and jagged claws, but her hands fit well in his own. She brings him out of himself, bit by bit, and he shows her the fire he still holds so terribly easily. One of the first things he gives her is a little copper wire. 

Between her and his little familiar, perhaps they could be enough. 

_I shall stay right here._

The chipper blue tiefling in the tavern who smiles and says “Hi, I’m Jester!” strikes a match and throws it carelessly over her shoulder.

Caleb and Nott finds themselves part of some kind of adventuring crew. He feels crowded and free all at once--being with people makes a good shield, but an equally good prison. It’s nerve-wracking to be surrounded by so many unknowns. 

_Though I am far from you,_

Caleb survives with a spell on his breath, one hand in Nott’s and the other in Frumpkin’s fur. It’s a close thing, every single day. Every mote in his body says to run, run, run, take Nott and run far away from here, far away from these people. Far away from Mollymauk’s harsh kindness and Jester’s sweet innocence and Beau’s grumpy protectiveness and Fjord’s many faces and Yasha’s gentle strength. 

_I’m with you as I sleep,_

But there’s this thing, budding between them all, like so many vines entwining, binding every limb to another. Caleb is afraid, so afraid--he’s never been more afraid in his life, but at the same time he’s never been so brave. He doesn’t like that these people make him brave, that they force him out of his thoughts and into the sunlight. The sunlight blinds him, these days. 

He stays afraid until they are taken away. And then he forces it all down, shoves every emotion he’s ever felt down his throat because maybe there’s something worth saving in this tangled knot of a group they’ve made.

(Then a single thread is cut. It pulls them together so tight that they can hardly breathe, but maybe it’s okay, maybe they don’t need air right now.)

_And I speak with you,_

And--suddenly, sharply--all of them are cornerstones. Caleb is a cornerstone. They make the oddest geometric shape together, but pull one away and the rest will come tumbling down like children’s blocks. 

(He’s not used to being relied on. He thinks--he shouldn’t be relied on. He’s only held together with sticks of kindling and silver thread.)

_On awakening,_

They’re joined by a man dually raised by the forest and the family he’s lost, and he slots into place with a rightness that should’ve been unsettling were they not all too exhausted to really notice. (The vines that entwine them make sense, suddenly.)

Caleb looks down one day to find that his hands are aflame, and he holds them close to his chest to keep from burning anyone. 

_I am alone._

Beauregard and Nott exchange glances, sometimes. When his eyes go too blank and his magic sparks in the air (so bright and burning that even Fjord can feel it. The fire that runs through him is always a reflection). 

It’s so easy for Nott to take his hand and press something glittery into his hands, too easy for Beau to put her hand on his shoulder, always casual, abrasive in that comforting way. Sometimes he finds the awareness to squeeze Nott’s hand and return whatever precious button she’d offered. Sometimes he finds the strength to put his hand in Beau’s hair, still shaking, but the message gets sent. (I’m here, I’m here, thank you again.)

_Not an hour of night goes by,_

Lightning and rain run through Yasha’s blood like ashes and sparks rage in his own, and in this, they are one. It’s a surprising thing for them both--words traded in a language no one else can understand, the smell of smoke mingling with ozone. The harmonic destruction of storm and flame is so much more beautiful than fire and ice. 

_Without my heart awakening,_

Sometimes Caleb wakes up to hands on his chest, around his wrists, and he hears muffled berations and chiding. He manages to be surprised every time, that Jester and Caduceus would do this thing for him. He wonders whether the light that shines from them both is like his fiery reflection--are they truly so bright? Or do the entities they’ve taken to heart just love them that dearly?

He wonders how he let them become his guardians, like this. 

(We will not leave enough of him to be found.)

It makes him smile, and the magic at his fingertips glows with the warmth of a campfire, or a hearth. 

There is a destructive power there, in that glow. There always is, but this one is so much more measured and careful. 

(If he lays a hand on either of you, I will burn this city down to ash.)

_And thinking how you,_

He is learning, with pleasant surprise, that he has his own propensity for creation. There’s a striking therapy to be found in taking magic apart bit by bit, making it a science, and reforming it for his own use. He sees Fjord practically taking notes sometimes, out of the corner of his eye. (It makes the teacher in him proud, and that pride twists in his chest--he had long thought that part of him gone).

They’re two sides of the same coin, him and this long-ago-drowned sailor--fire and water (so strikingly different from fire and ice), caution and impulsivity. That water drips from Fjord’s blade just as flame flickers from Caleb’s fingers, and as Fjord and his hundred masks rise to meet him, so does the ocean. 

Their blood mingles and Fjord feels burning, skin blistering, his hand falling away into ash, but when he looks down it is whole and unmarred--except for the still-bleeding cut. 

They are leaders, the both of them. Talkers. Both of their silver tongues were forged in frigid temperatures, and intricate stories fall off of their voices in unison. It’s a bit of a partnership, this stay-back-and-plan and let’s-improvise, but it works. 

_A thousand times,_

The seven of them speak with politicians and kings and queens, people they should hardly be associating with on the best of days. They are motley and cobbled and patchwork (just the way they like it). They look like a mess, act like a disaster, and have hardly spoken to a single man or woman without completely befuddling them. And yet, here they are--diplomats for nations.

Someone asks--why? How?

(Caleb has wondered the same thing a hundred times over. How these seven empty people found each other wandering, and became bound.)

Caduceus looks back at them all, and smiles slightly. He only says—my friend, I travel with murderers and thieves, and they are the best people I’ve ever known. 

_Have given me your heart._

.

**Author's Note:**

> Robert Schumann’s SATB choral arrangement of this song is gorgeous !!! And so very sad (though some choirs will sing it very fast or very opera which messes with the solemnity a bit, whoops). I’ve been looking for an excuse to write something with it for ages, lol  
> Here’s a link to the best version I could find ! It’s only 2 parts instead of 4 but still very nice: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXlgU2HE_RY


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